The final quality audit (FQA) process, in the
electronic hardware
Electronic hardware consists of interconnected electronic components which perform analog or logic operations on received and locally stored information to produce as output or store resulting new information or to provide control for output actu ...
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
world, is the last process flow before shipping a product. This process is established to ensure the unit has gone through and passed all the manufacturing or test process and is in good quality.
This process not only includes visual checking of the unit (i.e. labels has been placed properly, no scratches, no dents, all LED/lights are functional) but also checks that the correct
firmware
In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
and version plus configuration has been loaded properly. It must power up according to specs as well.
There are cases where a separate out of the box audit (OBA) process is defined, but most of the time this can be combined as well. OBA is just a visual check making sure that the unit has, again, the correct labels plus all the manuals or other parts that needs to ship with it is also inside the box. Labels from the unit should also match the ones outside the box.
Besides checking good quality of the unit, this process also must ensure that none of the configuration will be touched. There are cases where a firmware tracks down the last power ON it had and thus leave some new information to the unit. Although these changes are sometimes acceptable, a good
test engineer
A test engineer is a professional who determines how to create a process that would best test a particular product in manufacturing and related disciplines, in order to assure that the product meets applicable specifications. Test engineers are als ...
should always plan a strategy along with the firmware developers to put a feature in place to reset this information.
See also
*
Quality audit
Quality audit is the process of systematic examination of a quality system carried out by an internal or external quality auditor or an audit team. It is an important part of an organization's quality management system and is a key element in the ...
References
*Armand Vallin Feigenbaum. ''Total quality control: engineering and management'' McGraw-Hill, 1951 pg. 542
Quality control
Hardware testing